The Strangler Fig is a parasitic botanical boa constrictor with vine-like aerial roots.

When it does bear fruit, the tiny sticky seeds are deposited high in the tree by animal droppings. The seeds stick to the tree branches, or decaying leaves in the crook of a branch. The seeds are not affected by the animals digestive tract and soon germinate.

Each seed that sticks begins it's life as an epiphyte high up in the tree canopy and sends out snaking aerial roots toward the ground. The host tree supplies the necessary nutrients for the growth of the fig. Because the seed starts its life high above ground, there is ample sunlight.

The roots begin to fuse and the growth is aggressive. Eventually the aerial roots reach the ground and begin to send nutrients back up into the fig plant which has simultaneously been sending branches and leaves upward to the sunlight.

Eventually, a tree as tall as 150 feet can be encased in the strangler and killed. It's serpent tendrils are none too soon in reaching the ground because the strangler fig completely replaces its host when the dead tree has rotted away inside of this life sucker. And the strangler fig lives on.

What sort of parable could Jesus have been trying to illustrate using the metaphor of this strange tree?